The ever-growing affiliate marketing spending in the United States – more than a fivefold increase from $1.6 billion in 2010 to $8.2 billion in 2022 – indicates the increasing demand for quality affiliates and publishers. But it’s not enough to onboard affiliates – as an advertiser, you must masterfully manage every aspect of your digital presence, ensuring your partnerships benefit you and your affiliates.
- Phonexa’s affiliate tracking software is a white-label solution designed to leverage lead management, email marketing, automated accounting, and click and call tracking within its all-encompassing software suite. Deeply integrated into a unified lead management ecosystem, Phonexa’s affiliate tracking software will allow you to track, manage, and grow your affiliate marketing while establishing yourself as a reliable advertiser.
Products like Phonexa’s affiliate tracking software are indispensable for automating your affiliate management. Even if you could handle the workload alone – which is only possible for the smallest networks – manual work would quickly render your business uncompetitive.
Read on to learn:
- How affiliate programs work and why you need one.
- What affiliate software is capable of.
- How to find your best affiliate program.
With no further ado, let’s dig into it.
How Affiliate Programs Work And Why You Need One
All affiliate programs inevitably follow the same sales model:
- Affiliates or publishers generate sales, clicks, and views for their advertisers in exchange for a fee.
The most popular affiliate payment models include pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-lead (PPL), pay-per-sale (PPS), and pay-per-impression (PPI), all viable under different circumstances. For example, PPL and PPS are considered the most reliable as these models ensure a thorough qualification process for the leads sold or supplied.
So how do affiliate programs work?
There are no universal mechanics for all affiliate programs, but one of the most popular scenarios is when an affiliate network creates a market of leads where leads are sold and bought. Such an affiliate program operates as follows:
- Advertisers and publishers join the network and set their expectations: the number of leads to buy or sell, demographics, price per lead, exclusivity (whether the lead was previously offered to another advertiser), etc.
- The affiliate network matches the demand and supply, offering advertisers leads that match their settings. If the top priority advertiser doesn’t buy all leads, the remainder is offered to the next best buyer while meeting the publisher’s requirements.
Besides an unprecedented level of automation, affiliate programs can increase your and your affiliates’ marketing potential using the data they collect. This can be creative materials, templates, banners, registration forms, fraud prevention, granular real-time reports on campaign performance, and more.
Long story short, it’s impossible to remain competitive without affiliate software, whether you are an advertiser or affiliate.
What Affiliate Software Is Capable Of
The capabilities of affiliate software largely depend on how deeply it is integrated with your other software. For example, Phonexa’s affiliate software integrates with lead tracking, click tracking, affiliate marketing software, and the Pay Per Lead affiliate program, enabling deep insights into the performance of your affiliate partners.
Here’s what affiliate software can equip you with:
- Exclusive lead generation tools: creative materials, API integration, etc.
- Automated payments: instant payments to your affiliates for generated leads.
- Real-time reports on affiliate campaigns: clicks, calls, conversions, and more.
- Fraud prevention: detection and elimination of fraudulent and duplicated leads.
- Predictive modeling: data-driven scenarios for your future campaigns.
Everything mentioned is usually within a single dashboard, giving you a bird’s-eye view of your affiliate marketing. Likewise, top-tier affiliate software will allow you to customize your affiliate tracking process, including lead distribution.
How To Find Your Best Affiliate Program?
There’s no shortage of affiliate programs on the market, but finding one may still be a challenge for B2B marketers, as the business-to-business sales cycle involves fewer but more essential partners and is generally more complex.
Here’s how you can find an affiliate program that best suits your needs:
- Check the background. The affiliate program’s past performance isn’t a guarantee of your success per se, but it can tell you whether this particular program is worth exploring. You don’t want to join unverified or unprofitable programs, do you? A spotless track record is a must.
- Check the toolkit. Every affiliate program tries to stand out with unique tools for advertisers and publishers. Evaluate whether the program’s toolkit and payment model – PPC, PPS, PPL, or PPI – resonate with your affiliate marketing goals.
- Check the agreement. Do not trust the program on word – peruse the agreement so you’re not caught off-guard when you’ve already made a commitment.
Whether you want to buy or sell qualified or unqualified web or call leads, there are enough affiliate programs to choose from. The biggest mistake you can make is refusing to automate and scale, as this will likely slow down your business, if not stall it altogether.
